Tam McManus played for Hibernian. Therefore, it goes without saying that he was never going to rank too highly on any popularity chart among Hearts fans. Yet his career in Edinburgh

derby matches began badly and deteriorated.

“Alex McLeish gave me my first start, playing wide right, up against the Hearts fans,” McManus recalls. “I walked over to get the ball for a throw, looked down, and I was covered in spit. A baptism of fire – and the Hearts fans just kept stoking it throughout my career, even after I’d left Hibs.”

He laughs: “The thing I never got was, just how much the Hearts support disliked me, when really, they should have loved me – because my record against them was abysmal.”

One match in particular stands out for McManus – unsurprisingly, for the wrong reasons. “You mean apart from watching Mark de Vries score four on his Hearts debut in a 5-1 win?” he asks. “You’ll be talking about the classic 4-4 draw – which was only a classic for neutrals and Jambos.

“Bobby Williamson had never beaten Hearts while being Hibernian boss. But we were 4-2 up, and I had scored when he took me off at

Tynecastle with about three minutes to go. By the time I reached the dressing room it was 4-4. Craig Levein had stuck on Graham Weir with about 10 minutes left and he scored twice. Inspired.

“But maybe that’s what Bobby gets for taking his talisman off,” McManus concludes, shaking his head, either in a disbelief at what happened, or more likely, that he played that excuse note.

Nearly 15 years on from that epic tie and Tuesday evening will see Hibs host the first Premiership derby of the new season in the capital. And, somewhat bizarrely, Hearts are again led by former Scotland manager Levein.

“I don’t think anyone saw that coming – no, actually, we did in a roundabout way,” admits McManus, a pundit these days with Radio Scotland, in addition to duties as columnist with The Herald.

“There was an air of inevitability that things could go wrong for Ian Cathro and Hearts, and that someone would be left to pick up the bits. That it is Craig Levein, I suppose, wasn’t a total surprise.

“The entire Cathro experiment fell apart – as most people thought it might. But Hearts acted quickly, made the decision to let Levein take on two jobs, and it is starting to pay off.

“I think Hearts recovered quite quickly, mainly because most people could see what was coming. It was almost as if they knew there would be change sooner or later. Hearts just couldn’t continue like that, when no-one appeared to know what they were doing,

“I was one who wanted to give him [Cathro] a chance, and wanted to see if something a bit different would work. But at the back of your mind, especially when you heard some of the murmurings coming out of the dressing room at Tynecastle, there was a feeling he wasn’t up to it. So there was always this nagging doubt that ‘why should Ian Cathro be the one to make this approach work?’. Ultimately it didn’t. He didn’t get the reaction from players, and they were players he recruited. At the end, he was unravelling at press conferences and in interviews, and that wasn’t nice to see.”

So it was all change in Gorgie, except as McManus points out, it was a return to what had gone before.

“I was part of different Hibs teams that played against Craig Levein when he was Hearts boss the first time,” he says. “The first thing I’d say about his teams was that they were all massive; big boys. There was no way then, and I imagine it might be the same going forward, that you’d outmuscle or bully one of his teams.

“Secondly, I think Craig sets his stall out never to give anything away. That might be at the expense of seeing nice, attractive football. But he has always been effective at club level.

“You remember Hearts going away to Bordeaux in the Uefa Cup, playing a proper 3-6-1 formation, and getting a result. I speak to Hearts fans and some are not happy with how the team is set up and the pragmatic approach. But, again, it has worked.

“The other week they beat Ross County away with 10 men. The roof would have caved in under Cathro. But Levein almost sees that as a challenge, to make something out of adversity.”

While Hearts were in turmoil, Hibs, in contrast, made a tremendous start back in the top division, gaining praise for their approach, and even beating Rangers at Ibrox. Why then, going into the midweek joust, is there nothing between the two sides in the league?

“You almost need a double take at the table,” McManus says. “Hearts were poor, Hibs were buzzing. That’s how people have been reporting it or seeing it when the reality is very different.”

Yesterday’s loss at Hampden means Hibs now have just two wins in nine matches in all competitions. Add that to the disappointment of a semi-final defeat, and Neil Lennon and his team badly need to make home advantage count on Tuesday.

“I think from the earliest part of the season, Hibs were always touted as the team on the up,” McManus says. “They started well given they’d been in the Championship for so long, and the comparisons were there to be made immediately with Hearts.

“While the League Cup was an unmitigated disaster for Hearts, Hibs began brightly, got results, and played some nice stuff. Suddenly, they were fancied as challengers to Aberdeen and Rangers. But they haven’t backed up the confidence others had in them.

“They are a nearly team in so many ways; they’ve nearly won a lot of matches, and they nearly reached a cup final. They should have had more points in the league. Their performances have maybe deserved it, but, you are back to the argument that it isn’t about how you play, it’s about winning. And they just haven’t done that often enough.

“Neil Lennon is a winner; he was as a player, he is as a manager. Yes, he’d like his team to play in a certain way, pass well, entertain. But all you really want is three points and you don’t care how they come, especially if you need a win badly. He’d settle for a scrappy 1-0 on Tuesday, trust me.”